ASSESSING CHANGES IN NUTRIENT INTAKES OF PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN - COMPARISON OF 24-HOUR DIETARY RECALL AND FOOD FREQUENCY METHODS

Methods for assessing change in the habitual diet of children are esse ntial for diet intervention studies as well as clinical management. Fo od frequency questionnaires are a potential alternative to recall and record methods, which require multiple days of data collection for sta ble individual estimates of habitual intake. Over 3 years, we studied 173 children (93% Hispanic; baseline age 44-60 months) in New York Cit y. We obtained dietary data by interviewing the child's mother. We cal culated intakes of nine nutrients, expressed as nutrient densities, as the mean of two administrations of the Willett food frequency questio nnaire and the mean of three administrations of the 24-hour dietary re call in years 1 and 3. The two methods consistently estimated the dire ction of change in mean nutrient density of total and polyunsaturated fat, cholesterol, carbohydrate, and potassium. Changes in nutrient den sity assessed by the two methods correlated poorly (r less than or equ al to 0.15) for all nine nutrients. Cross-classification analysis also showed no relation between change assessed by recall and food frequen cy methods. Lack of between-person variability could not explain the l ow correlations, as individual changes in nutrient density were large.